A Trip to Meliá Desert Palm: The City’s Sanctuary
Written By: William Buckley
Day tripping with Sorbet's Deputy Editor William Buckley to Dubai's wellness oasis Meliá Desert Palm.
At first glance, I figured the Meliá Desert Palm hotel was either on or adjacent to the Palm Jumeirah; it is not. Named for the date palms planted on the estate, there is none of the hustle and bustle that increasingly defines that other Palm. Meliá Desert Palm is an oasis of peace, and just a 20-minute drive from Downtown, it is truly a wonder that it even exists. From the pool, surrounded by the polo fields, bougainvillea and the date palms it is named for, the only reminder that you are still a short drive from civilisation is the towering Burj Khalifa, just visible on the horizon.
That one can travel such a short distance and all but entirely escape from the city seems like a dream. Indeed, when I booked the escape, I forgot all about a baby shower I had on Saturday morning. Not to worry though. I hopped in the car and popped by the party, then surreptitiously snuck out and returned to tranquillity.
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
THE ROOM
Full disclosure, I did not stay in a room. I did see them: the perfectly appointed Deluxe rooms with warm wood panelling and a floor-standing bathtub, a masterclass in modern interiors. I saw the Polo View Suite, with its terrace overlooking the fields, with sturdy men on horseback playing the “sport of kings”. There are one-bedroom villas and two-bedroom villas that might ignite inquiry into the availability of the villa residences on the estate. But we stayed at the three-bedroom Layali Villa. It is spectacular.
With all bedrooms and the living/dining room accessed via doors off a vast courtyard with a huge pool, honestly, calling it a villa somehow undersells it. At 845 square metres, it is designed like a contemporary riad, with the privacy of a secluded estate rather than a hotel suite, and enough space to comfortably lose track of your travelling companions for several hours. Even the lazy walk from the master bedroom, out across the courtyard, passed the pool, to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, and through the living room to the terrace overlooking the championship polo field feels like a luxury summer stroll. With all the glorious space, you are a little pressed to leave the villa at all.
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
THE AMENITIES
But leave you must. Because the main pool at the hotel is a fabulous haven, with poolside food and drinks, and sun loungers set around the sides and among the terracotta vases with climbing vines, all overlooking the green expanse of the estate. Polo players in full regalia might take lunch poolside too, which, as people-watching goes, I would rank hard to match.
And, if you can bear to tear yourself away from this pool, or that pool, a tour of the stables will give you an intimate glimpse of polo-playing life. Players practise on the surrounding fields while magnificent Arabian horses are groomed and fed. A riding school is adjacent, where suited and booted budding champions swing their mallets. And a Spanish hacienda, used for special events, with myriad courtyards and fountains, houses peacocks that shake out their tail feathers in gleeful displays of turquoise blue.
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
Courtesy of Meliá Desert Palm
THE SPA
Hotel spas at luxury hotels are my happy place. If time permits, I’ll spend hours just wandering between treatments and saunas and restorative pools. And at Samāna Spa, I did just that. Here, the colours of the estate have been distilled into stone. Dark browns and graphite mosaic tiles envelop you like the very Earth is offering you a cuddle. Treatments are designed to heal ailments. Where to begin? My back has been in knots since the Nineties, and the stresses and strains of a fast-paced profession really do take their toll. So naturally, the Miel d’Ambre & Rose de Sucre Body Treatment first: a deeply satisfying coarse exfoliation that scrubbed away all memory of deadlines and drama, followed by a warm amber cream that felt like a full-body blessing.
Normally, I’d go for an aggressive massage, perhaps deep tissue or sports, but the scrub had sufficiently beaten me, and I was at the hotel to relax, so I opted for the Candle Sensory Awakening Massage, with slow strokes and heated amber oils that dissolved every last trace of tension. Afterwards, defiantly refusing a return to reality, I had hot tea and drifted around the hydrotherapy circuit, between the steam room, sauna, the ice room and heated stone beds. Bliss.
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